


the Spider, the Bird and the Shadows

by lillyanthea



Series: The Spider and The Bird [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Evil people - Freeform, F/F, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-02
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-04-07 07:43:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4255050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lillyanthea/pseuds/lillyanthea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Second instalment of 'The Spider and the Bird'. This takes the story into a darker place just so ya know</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Radio Silence

**Author's Note:**

> I'M BACK BABY. Oh, it's been a while, but I really wanted to continue this story! 
> 
> WARNING this story will go into darker places; for example torture. be warned and please if you feel you may be triggered read with caution and love yourselves.

_This is how it starts;_

_The Black Widow flips and slithers through the general destruction of the street, familiarising herself with the weaponry that this new brand of alien creatures have brought with them, she bends and grabs a gun, blasts one away, slowly but surely eliminating every threat around her. She quips dryly with her teammates over the comms, the only sign of adrenaline her slightly breathless voice as she makes quick work of those around her._  
_Hawkeye flits from building to building, dexterous and graceful, shooting down and around into the fray. He catches lifts with Iron Man, launches off Hulk’s back or jumps off a ledge to be caught by Angel. He starts singing_ Sugar We’re Going Down _loudly and thoroughly off key and Angel and Iron Man are quick to join in until Cap shushes them with an exasperated tone._  
_Iron Man is everywhere, or at least he tries to be. Whizzing around firing blasts at unwitting creatures, joining his teammates on the ground or in the air, red and gold flashing dramatically as he blatantly ignores Cap’s overdramatic sighs and general disgruntlement about professionalism and making_ those _sorts of jokes._  
_Captain America, in his good old-fashioned way punches out enemies left, right and centre, flinging his shield like a true ‘Frisbee of Death’ (as named by his teammates). He supports and backs his team through his earpiece, leaping over cars and sprinting down the street to face whatever comes next._  
_Thor slams his hammer, swoops, flies, his cape battering the wind and majestically swirling as he fights._  
_Hulk smashes._  
_They move fluidly, each knowing where the others are, knowing when to duck, to jump, to fall. Like a machine, or, like a family._  
_It is then that Clint launches off a building, only to fall, neglected by Angel._  
_She does not catch him._  
_He swears she was just there._  
_Iron Man pulls him out of the air just in time, both of them cursing._  
_Captain America speaks into his com._  
_“Angel! Where the heck are you?”_  
....................  
_“Angel, report now.”_  
....................  
_“Angel?”  
_ ………………..

***

You wake up to a pounding in your head. Your eyes are closed but you can tell the room is too bright for your eyes or brain to approve of.  
You feign unconsciousness for a while longer, you hear the faint buzzing of the light, and realise you’re sitting up, arms, legs and wings restrained to a chair, your head lolling uncomfortably forwards.  
“I know you are awake.”  
He sounds the way you think an eel would, his voice is thick and sickly.  
“Sit up straight for your friends...”  
You jolt up - _surely he hasn’t got the Avengers_ \- to find yourself in a small concrete room with one glass wall to your right. Through the wall is another room, fully dark but it is empty.  
Ahead of you is a camera and two men.  
You hate yourself for being fooled so easily.  
The voice speaks again, from speakers you assume.  
“Good girl”  
The two men walk over and stand at either shoulder. Your heart pumps wildly and your hands start to sweat.  
“We assure you, you will be very comfortable here...”  
The backhanded slap comes so quickly your head jerks and your chair almost topples over. White invades your vision and clears slowly.  
“You _son_ of a _bi-”_  
The other man grabs the back of the chair and pulls it backwards, so it leans on its two back feet. In instinct, you go to spread your wings for balance but the restraints dig into you. He holds you, dangling while the voice finishes his little speech.  
“You shall be treated as a guest of the utmost importance, if you comply with my...shall we say ‘investigations’. You see, I am very interested in these wings of yours. I feel that they are not natural, and that a...mutant such as you should be dealt with.”  
You feel your heart thud, you gasp for air - then the thug drops your chair and your head smashes into the concrete floor, pulling you under.


	2. Baby, Come Back...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this is taking me so long. Thank you all for staying and keeping on reading, much thanks to you all

Natasha’s hand is gripping Tony so tightly that he’s certain it’s broken in some places. He would probably care if he wasn’t seeing one of his friends being manhandled and threatened on a live feed.  
The slap surprises them all, they flinch as if they can feel it through the television. Finally, when that _fucking idiot thug_ drops the chair, Steve actually jumps up and looks like he’s going to be ill. Natasha watches the screen with a deadly determination.

Jarvis is tracking any signal he can, Coulson in a rare display of emotion looks a like a distraught mother who’s lost their child and Fury is, well, furious.

Natasha releases Tony’s hand and he strangles a gasp, realising exactly how tight her grip was. She stalks out of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier meeting room and steps down to the main control floor. The Avengers dully follow her to check the progress of the search for their teammate as she approaches an officer, placing her hands on their desk and leaning very slowly forwards.  
She holds still for a long minute as the agent starts visibly sweating, his hands shake slightly.  
“Report,” she growls “now.”  
The agent stutters through the routine ‘haven’t traced it yet… something about the footage …’  
He is cut off by Natasha’s snarl. She hisses something at the agent and prowls away from his desk.  
Fury sighs, _this is going to be hard,_ he thinks, if his agents are too busy being terrified by Natasha to do their work.

***

Banner feels like he’s waiting at a hospital for a family member. The agents pacing to and fro are like nurses, his fellow Avengers are his family waiting on the unknown news of their friend. Except their teammate is in serious danger and they have no way of finding her yet, of knowing if she’s ok or even still alive, and the tension is slowly eating away at his calm demeanour. With a shaky sigh, he takes his glasses off and rubs his eyes, _breathe in, two, three, and out, two, three, four, five. In… out…_

Thor stands very still, looking out into the clouds that surround the Helicarrier. He stares out; not seeing the approaching evening. He is deep inside his mind and half in Asgard, feeling Heimdal’s gaze through the galaxies, knowing if his sister-in-arms is alive. His mind wanders the empty halls of his palace, searching for sources of aid, searching for an answer, a way in which he can be of use. 

Steve feels like he’s back on the field and waiting for news that a comrade has fallen, a friend lost. He can almost feel the hard soil beneath him, the cold German winter seeping through his coat, the smell of camp and gunpowder poisoning the air. One thing keeping him from slipping completely into that hallucination is the weight of Tony on the couch next to him. Tony has fallen into a disjointed, laboured sleep. He tosses and turns, sometimes waking with a cry on his lips, then drifting back to sleep, then waking sweating, then falling back under, then waking… Steve’s hand circles gently on his leg, and each time Tony wakes Steve comes out of his reverie to lull the genius back to sleep. 

After several hours of growling at baby agents and stalking through the corridors of the Helicarrier, anger rolling off her in waves, Natasha pauses mid step. Her senses snap into focus as she senses the presence near her right shoulder, behind her. She whirls around to face him...

***

Clint had melted into the metalwork of the Helicarrier soon after the video feed had cut off. He had perched cross-legged out of sight and thus far remained undisturbed. He keeps on reliving that moment before the fall - he’d seen her, he’d _seen_ her flying his way, they’d locked eyes and a second later he flung himself off the building, twisting to shoot the thing behind him. _Dropping through the air, his stomach clenched when he passed the point she should have caught him. He cursed into his comm and tried with wide eyes to search through the whirl of buildings and sky and ground to find her “Angel! Fucking where-!” a shocking pain ripped through his left shoulder, and the world came back into balance. He felt the metal fingers around his arm. Iron Man settled them on the ground - much too close for his liking._  
_“Cap, guys he’s OK - I caught him, but I think, I think his arm’s-“_  
_“Dislocated - my shoulder-“_  
“Dislocated, it’s fucking dislocat-“  
“Tony”  
“fuck - how do I -“  
“Tony, hold my arm-“  
“- OH shit ok, not dislocated anymore”

Clint knows he shouldn’t feel betrayed. None of that was Angel’s fault, she’d disappeared after they’d locked eyes, surely. This knowledge doesn’t help much, as his brain re-routes to feeling guilty instead. Maybe if he hadn’t decided to jump, she could’ve fended off the attack… He flickers out of his reverie as Nat passes by him. He slips out of his hiding place and reaches out to touch her but his hand never makes contact, she whirls around and flings it away. He takes in her tight demeanour and fierce eyes.  
They stare at each other for a second longer. Clint makes a decision - he stands by the fact that that this decision is based on many, many years of working with Nat and knowing exactly what she needs to get through her anger. He punches her in the face.

They both seem shocked, Clint wasn’t actually expecting to make the hit, and Natasha for a second looks horrified at herself for not blocking it. The anger doesn’t drain out of her form, but she cracks her neck from side to side then nods.  
“Yeah…Ok.”  
She moves forward and they both lower their stance.  
He goes to strike again but with nearly half the force of before and it’s incredibly easy for her to block this time.  
“Well if we’re doing this, don’t go easy”  
“Hey, ladies first.”  
She lunges at him, and they’re sparring in the hallway, twisting and each landing their share of hits until Natasha gets a determined look in her eye and suddenly they’re not sparring anymore - Natasha fights dirty and angry, letting out her fear for Angel minutely in every kick, scratch and bite. She grabs his collar and uses her leg to twist behind his knee, simultaneously pulling and pushing him to the ground. He retaliates by getting an elbow in her thigh, just below the hip. For a few seconds no one comes out on top, neither one really strategically thinking about how to beat the other, each still a little focussed on getting the anger out. They don’t pause when Steve and Tony (having been alerted by some dead pale agents who had stumbled across the pair) come hurtling around the corner, closely followed by the rest of the team and when they try to step in Natasha actually kicks Steve in the chest so hard the supersoldier takes a step or two back.  
“It’s OK” Clint puffs between dodging a hit “We both need this-“  
“Yeah, beating you into the ground is an excellent source of stress relief” Natasha says drily.

At least she’d progressed from pure, seething anger to dry sarcasm.


	3. Heart of Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SO SORRY FOR HOW LONG THIS TOOK.

When you wake up this time, you are out of the chair and lying on the floor however your wings are still bound tight at your back, as are your hands. You twist your wrists and feel the thick rope burn and scrape at your skin. You roll onto your shoulder and use your knees to jerk you into an upright position but suddenly pain slams into your head and you remember being hit, no, dropped. Your ears ring and as you try to look around… it’s… blurry… 

You slump back to the floor and unconsciousness comes over you again.

 

When you wake up again, you are still on the floor however your restraints are undone and your head hurts minutely less. One figure stands at the door, but he or she is wearing a black suit and gas mask. Your senses suddenly alert, your pulse quickens. A man stands in the next room, you see him through the glass. He’s mostly in darkness, but you can see hazy features, a thin figure, strong jaw. Tall. His hands are clasped in front of his body and they look mangled, lumpy. He doesn’t speak, but raises a hand. You realise his fingers are covered in rings, at least six on that hand. The rings look familiar but you can’t place them. You stand up gingerly and survey the room around you. Your head hurts and your eyes swim a little but you see a green thickness in the air. His hand lowers and the gas starts flowing into the room, like millions of ants swarming down from the ceiling and creeping towards you. It’s greenish and as it creeps nearer, your heart pounding, you try to hold your breath for as long as you can while the gas washes over your body.   
Your lungs beg you to breathe while your mind screams at you to hold on for as long as you can.  
The burning becomes too much, your eyes water. Suddenly you’re on the floor, the figure in the suit having pushed you to the ground, knocking all air out of your lungs and causing you to gasp a lungful of the thick, soupy gas.  
You feel it pervade your body, your skin feels hot. Your lungs hurt and they feel dirty, like the gas has covered them in muck. Your injuries suddenly scream at you, your head, your cheek, the marks from your restraints, you let yourself whimper and you start to feel your muscles seize up. Your legs and arms and wings jerk, knocking against the ground, pulling your muscles painfully tight and locking your joints in contorted positions.   
Every breath sears down your throat and your body starts forcing the gas out, you cough, retch and claw at your skin. Your eyes spew tears which sting your cheeks, you feel pain bloom in your cheek as you accidentally bite the inside. Blood comes out in your cough.   
Then the pain ratchets up, and you scream.

***

The screen turns to static and the Avengers are immediately in the room, waiting with baited breath. Then the visual clears. It has no sound.  
She is lying on the ground, face up. She claws at her chest, at her arms. Her wings push her off the ground and slam her body back into the floor with incredible force. She coughs, and screams, her eyes stream.  
Subtitles appear;

_Your Avengers are not coming. They do not care._

No subtitles appear for her response, but she sobs something that looks like “They do!”

_They can’t find you, they do not care._

Her face contorts, her back arches and her nails draw blood on her chest.

_They are not your family. They do not love you._

Suddenly the audio blasts through the speakers, she is screaming with her entire body, her voice shatters each Avenger’s resolve and when her words become clearer they are left pale and wrecked.

“-I’M SORRY- PLEASE I’M- 

She screams that she is a monster. She screams her hate for the thing inside her. She screams that she is wrong, evil, a monster. She screams for help.


	4. Into the Black

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double update for you beautiful readers. I love you my babies.

This is how it happens;

An Agent bursts into the briefing room at 3:37am. She says nothing but the look of surprise mixed with caffeine-driven determination says it all. They’ve tracked down the signal from the videos and in a dead silence the Avengers ready themselves and take off in the jet. 

After six hours in the air they land who knows where and exit the jet silently, as men approach they are taken down with cold-hearted loathing.

As the Avengers force their way into the building their eyes flash murder. They still move as a machine but every now and then someone slips: aims their weapon to protect the person who isn’t there, catches a graze because they assumed she was there to stop it.  
They burrow into the place, meeting no real hardships until they bust into a basement floor, they are swarmed with thugs but they take most of them down before each Avenger freezes in place, they will their muscles to move but can’t and one by one their eyes rest on the tall, lank figure at the back of the room.

“Very well done.” His voice is smooth, full and slimy. His hand in a fist beside him, rings glowing on his fingers.  
From her position, frozen, Natasha can see Cap vibrating with tension, his body half-twisted, frozen mid throw. She can see Thor reaching for his hammer, fingers locked in the air, arm taut. She can feel Tony hovering near her right shoulder.  
Her mind races, she pushes and pulls and pleads with her muscles to move, damn it, move!  
But she remains cold and still. A tear almost escapes her eye with the effort, she wants to scream but her jaw is locked and yet she feels helpless.

A flick of his fingers and they all slump to the floor, unconscious.


End file.
